Bartender who recorded '47 percent' remarks speaks out

FILE- In this file video framegrab from a May 17, 2012 video provided by Mother Jones Video, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at a Florida fundraiser. David Corn, he reporter for Mother Jones magazine who broke the story of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's remarks that 47 percent of Americans "believe they are victims" is among the winners of the 64th annual George Polk Awards in Journalism. (AP Photo/Mother Jones Video)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The bartender working the private fundraiser where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made his comments about "47 percent" of Americans says he didn't make the secret recording as a political partisan.

In his first public interview, Scott Prouty tells MSNBC's Ed Schultz that he lost sleep and struggled for weeks before deciding to release the recording to the magazine Mother Jones. But Prouty says he thought it was important that people heard Romney and knew what he was really thinking.

Prouty told MSNBC that he had taken his camera hoping for a chance for a photograph with the presidential candidate but ended up recording the comments to a group of wealthy donors. Later, he told the HuffingtonPost.com that he felt it was his civic duty to release the video, posting it in numerous places before Mother Jones eventually propelled it to the American public and made it a part of the presidential race. He also worried about losing a well-paying bartender job as well as hurting his company, but he said he felt he had to release the video.

In the video, Romney tells donors paying $50,000 apiece that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government, see themselves as victims and believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.

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Romney's critics used the video to argue that he was out of touch with average Americans.